This letter has circulated all over the country in at least 43 states.
Bad enough one individual sent it out but we are now getting this letter back from people after it has been forwarded more than 20 times.
Since many of our staff are receiving this letter and demoralization is setting in among the paid staff accounting for much of our remaining membership, at least the membership we still recognize as being members, we could no longer withhold this letter from the rest of you.
The question is again what do we do about this?
I am asking for your help in solving this problem.
Here is the letter, the name has been omitted but we all know the source. The Hallite up there in Minnesota:
Comrades and friends,
I am intrigued by how any Communist Party, like the CPUSA, can be wrong about so many issues, so many times and withdrawn from so many struggles at a time when we are right in the middle of what can only be described as such “a Marxist moment” that any Communist would be eager and quick to immerse herself/himself in the struggles of the working class.
I have used the phrase “revisionist (or worse)” to describe the bunch surrounding Sam Webb on the National Board of the CPUSA. We have lost leaders and members in the past as a result of sharp ideological divisions… however, in this case, where were those ideological divisions? In fact, even as recent as this past Saturday Sam Webb invoked the names of Marx, Engels, Lenin and even Gus Hall to make a point… a wrong point at that.
If we look back at the history of our Party there is only one other time something like this happened and it was with the case of the editor of the Daily Worker, Louis Budenz who was on the payroll of the FBI for years. Budenz covered his dirty deeds with a growing revisionist outlook that sucked so many in it even compromised the Marxist-Leninist thinking of the leadership and helped lay the basis for the dissolution of the CPUSA which was laid at Browder’s feet because no one wanted to admit that Budenz, a paid FBI informant, had been hard at work in the Party for years setting things up.
Here we have Webb who was nothing but a “party hack” in every sense of the word. He pretended to support Marxist-Leninist ideology only to admit to the Chair of the Minneapolis club at a barbeque that he “never liked the term Marxism-Leninism.” This, after making an extensive trip to the Soviet Union and coming back extolling in speeches and writings how great everything was (if he was wrong he sure was one heck of a weak-minded person to suck it all in and who would want such a person to lead the Communist Party anyways--- no, Webb works for those who pay the best)… he did not have any questions at all that everything was well with socialism. Well, now, without explanation he changes his mind about what he calls “twentieth century socialism” and decides he wants no part in defending the great strides humanity made under the red flags of workers’ power.
And Jarvis Tyner; you can see and hear him still in YouTube videos as he stands next to Gus Hall in Red Square talking about the greatness of Soviet power. Another “party hack” that will say and do anything to keep a job.
How is it that Art Perlo can write such an articulate article for the PWW concerning the plight of working people, but no activity takes place using this article which could have and should have been distributed at Obama’s inaugural celebrations?
How is it that these Communist “leaders” can spend the money of our Party to fly to Washington D.C. to clap and cheer and weep with joy for Obama as he is sworn into office, but they could not distribute tens of thousands of copies of their own newspaper which they write for with the Communist analysis of the economic problem and their position of what needs to be done by working people if they are to protect their rights and livelihoods?
When the big picture of all of this is looked at one has to assume there is just some kind of bizarre string of events which no one can explain (which would be completely counter to Marxism, wouldn’t it?); or, one has to look at the problems more deeply.
We have had no accounting of membership figures; we have had no detailed financial explanations of where a million dollars comes from to remodel the Party offices.
Most important, we have had no explanation of why these newly remodeled Party offices have not been turned into a center of working class resistance to all this Wall Street thievery and bullshit.
One need only look at the pathetic state of the peace movement in this country and there is only one place to point one’s finger: squarely at the leadership of the Communist Party USA which has been on the wrong side of every single controversy when it comes to the question of peace throughout the Bush years and now with Obama; always and in each case siding with imperialism while making the excuse there is no other way to end these dirty imperialist wars. Why the vast difference from the way our Party engaged in the struggle to end the War in Vietnam and these dirty imperialist wars in the Middle East and why no work at all, except for a few “official statements,” on the Israeli killing spree in Gaza Strip?
Where are the letter writing campaigns?
Where is the petitioning?
Where is the tabling?
Where are the militant vigils and demonstrations?
Where is the “campaign for peace?”
Where are the Communist Party leaders traveling across the country helping to rebuild the Party by rebuilding the Party clubs. It is no secret the Party is small and weak with a dues paying membership of less than three-hundred now… with people continuing to quit because they can’t stomach this crap any longer. A country of over 300 million people; fewer than three hundred Communists… Pathetic. Disgraceful.
And we can ask the exact same questions about each and every other issue and struggle.
Going on right-wing talk shows unable to push one’s way into intelligent conversation and looking like stupid clowns is not part of the fight-back. The head of the Young Communist League even went on an ABC radio affiliated station in Florida and said the Communist Party and YCL would work together with the openly anti-Semitic and racist (not to mention anti-communist) John Birch Society in defending civil rights and civil liberties! What the hell is going on here? How can the Party leadership justify sending such a stupid fool out into the field to discuss the Party’s position on anything? In fact, there is no need for these “leaders” to care because their job is destroying the Communist Party. At best, turning it into some kind of envelope stuffing looking for donations plastic membership card organization.
I have been doing quite a bit of research on this outfit “Progressives for Obama” which the CPUSA leadership has aligned itself with and that is how I got into these “discussions” recently with Carl Davidson.
I thought it was very unusual that all of a sudden after Tom Hayden had been working to promote Israel and defend its murderous attacks on Palestinians and Israel’s Arab neighbors he has this miraculous rebirth of “leftism” which emerges from his die-hard support for Zionism and every dirty thing it stands for just in time to support Obama--- and here he is with one the former top officials from the AFL-CIO, Bill Fletcher, and Carl Davidson along with the vicious anti-communist Barbara Ehrenreich forming this group with Communist Party support--- Progressives for Obama... the list of current and former Communists affiliated with this group tells the entire story.
The Communist role in the group Campaign for America’s Future is more understandable… it is the kind of organization one would expect Communists to be working in--- if--- if they were trying to push things in a socialist oriented left direction--- this is what we do, right? Well, even in this group… I go to there annual conference and who do I find there? None other than the entire National Board. They are there, no leaflets, no People’s Weekly Worlds, no Political Affairs. I ask Jarvis Tyner, what the heck is going on? Where are the leaflets, papers, magazines? He tells me, “There was a mix-up; they got put on the wrong bus they never arrived.” Ya, sure, you betcha. Every other left group under the sun, labor union, civil rights organization, environmental organization and even church groups had their newspapers, newsletters, leaflets, petitions, postcards. I had a pile of leaflets about the struggles of workers but none of the National Board wanted to help pass them out.
Anyways, here is what I found on the Internet where Carl Davidson is talking about his alliances with “high road” capitalists… and he boasts out in this video, “Ok, if you must know; we brought in Gates.” Obviously a reference to the one and only Bill Gates; Microsoft Bill Gates.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=964417708881211306&q=source%3A016196903426436119595&hl=en
Check this talk by Carl Davidson out… do we want any part of this “new” New Left he and Tom Hayden, Barabara Ehrenreich and Bill Fletcher are peddling?
Bill Gates was one of Obama’s main “bundlers” along with George Soros, Maurice Strong and Warren Buffett (and Bernie Madoff!)
And all of a sudden every time you pick up the People’s Weekly World you see Carl Davidson this, Carl Davidson that and Carl Davidson who was the biggest anti-CPUSA person around in the 60’s, 70’s is now praising the leadership of the CPUSA.
And along comes Sam Webb showing off a new one-million dollar glass office remodeling job.
In the history of the left there is all kinds of times when many on the left have been wrong about many questions and problems for a variety of reasons but I don’t think there has ever been a time in history when so many of the opinions from such diverse forces and groupings on the left--- including a Communist Party--- have prostituted themselves for money as in the case of supporting Barack Obama.
Their “high road” is nothing but the “low” sell-out road… and this is why we have the leaders of the Communist Party sitting in their comfortable million-dollar glass offices not spending one single penny to recruit new members and organize clubs to initiate a fight-back against this brazen and brutal attack on the working class as they accept the imperialist definition of “peace” which means the successful occupation of a sovereign nation to rob it of its oil and use its territory as a staging grounds to dominate the region.
There is simply no other way to explain a Communist Party leadership being wrong on so many different questions and remaining so completely and thoroughly inactive at a time when so many working people are angry and suffering.
Webb and company and those on the National Board have been paid well for their services to imperialism by “high road” capitalists.
And how do we explain Sam Webb and Company being able to twist other Communist Parties in other countries around their little fingers?
Political Affairs is little more than a blog posting site; one only has to read the pathetic “blog postings” with the low ideological level which demonstrates there really is no thinking at all taking place along Marxist-Leninist lines.
Try to find “the Party line” on any issue or problem in any writing or speeches or talks; you can’t.
We are stuck with having to build Party clubs without any National organization; without any District Organizations for the most part.
I hope everyone will watch and listen to the video of Carl Davidson… is this the left you want?
How should we respond to this letter. So far I have been making personal calls and sending individual e-mails trying not to let anyone know these letters are getting under my skin and sticking in my craw.
Where do we even begin?
We made a promise to take care of the Minnesota Problem. We now confront a national emergency without a "Plan B."
This is the most serious problem we have at the moment.
Sam Webb
National Chair, CPUSA
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